Dawkins & New Atheists An Embarrassment to Atheists

The New Atheists (they are the militant atheist evangelists like Richard Dawkins) are under attack in the Guardian. “Dawkins et al bring us into disrepute,” says the Guardian title. It reflects the divide among atheists. “There’s a schism alright, and I seem to find myself on the unfashionable side of it.” Says Michael Ruse, “There are several reasons why we atheists are squabbling – I will speak only for myself but I doubt I am atypical. First, non-believer though I may be, I do not think (as do the new atheists) that all religion is necessarily evil and corrupting. This claim is on a par with golden plates in upstate New York. The Quakers and the Evangelicals were inspired and driven by their religion to oppose slavery, and a good thing too. Of course there has been evil in the name of religion” but “unlike the new atheists, I take scholarship seriously. I have written that The God Delusion made me ashamed to be an atheist and I meant it. Trying to understand how God could need no cause, Christians claim that God exists necessarily. I have taken the effort to try to understand what that means. Dawkins and company are ignorant of such claims and positively contemptuous of those who even try to understand them, let alone believe them. Thus, like a first-year undergraduate, he can happily go around asking loudly, “What caused God?” as though he had made some momentous philosophical discovery. “To Read the article click here: